


The Desert Ague

by crazybeagle



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: F/M, Fever, Heat Stroke, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, Romance, hyperthermia, post-manga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-20
Updated: 2012-07-06
Packaged: 2017-11-08 04:58:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/439398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazybeagle/pseuds/crazybeagle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ed attempts to make the trek to Xing to attend Ling's coronation as emperor, things go disastrously wrong. Turns out it really is a bad idea to cross the desert with automail. Good thing Winry tagged along, both to keep him alive and to call him ten kinds of idiot for having set out in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

In retrospect, Ed should have known it was a stupid idea. Winry had told him; hell, Winry was _still_ telling him, had told him just this morning while holding his hair out of his face as he was, rather pathetically, puking his guts out. He should've known that just because he'd made it to Xerxes once didn't mean that crossing the desert to Xing couldn't turn out to be a disaster. And a near-fatal one at that. That everything she'd warned him about would come back to bite him in the ass. It was a combination of sheer luck and a whole lot of determination on the part of Winry and of Jerso that he wasn't currently six feet under in some sandy hole with scorpions chewing on his shriveled-up hide.

And Winry was _never_ going to let him forget it.

At any rate, here they were—he, Winry, and Jerso, crowded, damp, and irate—in some leaky shack of a backwoods clinic, in some muddy one-horse outpost at the outskirts of Xing while a storm raged outside. And they were stuck here for what could be a matter of weeks until the one road out of town wasn't flooded, meaning that they'd probably wind up missing Ling's coronation anyhow. Not to mention Ed was still too damn sick to get out of bed.

Needless to say, this was almost hilariously far from what he'd envisioned when he'd told Winry before they'd left Amestris that this whole ordeal would be "like a vacation." And she wasn't going to let him forget _that_ , either, anytime soon.

At the moment, though, Winry was slumped over on the sagging mattress, her head near Ed's hip, fast asleep. Her hair, loose, tangled, and lighter than usual from weeks in the desert sun, spilled onto the blanket and obscured her still-sunburned cheeks, and _poof_ ed forward a bit where it fell in front of her nose and mouth with each slow, even breath. Idly, Ed picked up a strand of it and twirled it in two fingers, listening to the rain hammering the tin roof above them and marveling at the fact that Winry could sleep through it.

"She's still runnin' herself ragged worryin' about ya, kid," Jerso's voice rumbled from his spot on the threadbare couch in the corner of the small room. Ed started a bit; he'd been sure Jerso had been asleep, too. His eyes had been shut, chin resting on his expansive chest, but he was currently regarding Ed a raised eyebrow. "For her sake, ya better get yourself healthy again."

Ed looked from Jerso to Winry to Jerso again, and nodded, guilt as well as a bit of residual nausea twisting his gut. "Working on it," he said.

"'S it true what she said a few days back? 'Bout the two of you bein' _engaged_ and all that?"

And again, for the umpteenth time today, Ed's stomach lurched, but this time it had nothing remotely to do with nausea. He'd nearly forgotten about that.

He gulped, but managed: "You mean on the way into town, or did she mention it some other time?"

Jerso smirked. "No, I mean on the way into town." He regarded Ed with amusement. "What's the matter, kid? You look like ya just swallowed a bug."

Ed fidgeted a bit and glared at the sheets covering his knees—well, _knee_ , he amended, as his eyes met the empty space where his left should be. Of course the automail wasn't attached; it hadn't been for days and he _knew_ that, but it was always unnerving to _see_ it gone. Winry hadn't even begun to discuss when she'd be able to fix the damage to the port, let alone when he could have his leg back. And Jerso might be as good a bodyguard as any, but if they were ambushed somehow…

And he couldn't rule it out. Not once word of Li's death reached the Capitol. Li may have been a minor prince, but a prince he'd been nonetheless; a prince who'd just been beaten out for the throne and whose family could well be enraged enough to take it out on the new emperor's Amestrian friends. Though Ling would understand better than anybody the harshness and unpredictability of the desert, an entourage of three Amestrians and one Xingese that happened to result in the death of said Xingese did not exactly paint them in a positive light. Rumors would spread. Technically, Xing and Amestris were allies, but if they didn't watch their step, both now and when they reached the Capitol, the fallout of one stupid accident could be catastrophic for both nations. He felt a dull pounding somewhere behind his eyes, and pressed the heels of his palms into them, letting out a long breath.

Talk about a diplomatic nightmare.

"So the prospect of married life bothers ya that much, huh?"

Ed's head snapped up. "Huh?" he blurted, rather unintelligently. Then, when he remembered what they'd been talking about, "…Oh." He fidgeted again. "Shut up."

Jerso shrugged. "Suit yourself." He made a vague gesture at Winry. "Think this one's a keeper, though, if ya ask me."

Ed grimaced. "Yeah, well, I didn't ask you."

Jerso just chuckled.

He hadn't given much thought to Winry's word choice on the day in question—at the time, he'd been out of his head with fever, the driving rain like icy needles on his skin, being carried like a ragdoll against Jerso's chest while he fought to keep his eyes open. Even though Winry was barely a few feet ahead of them, he could barely make out her words over the din of the storm as she raced across one of the two rickety wooden bridges that were the town's only entrances: _Help, please help us, my fiancée needs a doctor, he's very sick…_

Looking back, Ed supposed he could understand her reasoning—like it or not, it was basic human psychology. Add a romantic element of any kind into any situation, and you'll get people's attention. _My fiancée needs a doctor_ sounded more impressive somehow, more dramatic, than _my friend needs a doctor_ or even _my boyfriend needs a doctor_.

And whatever he was to Winry, he was glad it warranted a stronger word than _friend_ or _boyfriend,_ even if she'd been dramatizing. It had worked, too. Minutes later he'd been brought to this place and tended to, which wound up saving his life.

But the thing was?

He'd never _proposed_ to her.

Sure, his whole _half-of-your-life-half-of-mine_ speech had been genuine. That had begun as some blurted-out, last-ditch effort to quit beating around the bush long enough to ask Winry to wait for him, and not to see other people while he was gone. But it had morphed into something else entirely, and they both knew it. He still wasn't quite sure _what_ yet, but he guessed it was his own damn fault if she translated what amounted to _I want to spend the rest of my life with you_ to _I'm going to marry you_. Especially after the…events…of the few nights following his return from Creta. He'd knocked on the door, and then she was in his arms, and then before he was quite aware what was going on they were kissing, and…well.

One thing led to another. Fast.

And it had all felt _right_ in a way that few things in his life ever had.

His gaze had drifted to Winry again, and he must've been staring, because Jerso was chuckling again.

"Y'know, you could try minding your own business," Ed snapped.

"I could," Jerso said, raising an eyebrow. "But it's damn near impossible to tune the two'a you out. It's like somethin' outta one of those radio soap operas, except at all hours'a the day, what with the way you stare at each other all sappy whenever ya think the other one a' you's not lookin'." He paused. "That's when you ain't bickerin' with each other, of course. Ain't never seen an engaged couple at each other's throats all the time like that, I gotta say."

"We're _not engaged_!"

Jerso snorted. "Not so loud, loverboy. Let Miss Rockbell catch some shuteye before you start pukin' all over everywhere again."

"We're not engaged," Ed grumbled.

"Whatever you say, kid."

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. I'm going back to sleep." Making sure to jar his leg port as little as possible, Ed turned himself so that he was facing _away_ from Jerso, and hiked the blanket up around his face, wrinkling his nose a bit at the strong mildewy smell of it. The whole process took him an almost embarrassingly long time to complete. It didn't help that his arms felt like noodles, or that Jerso's prediction about _pukin' all over everywhere_ might not be too far off with the way his stomach kept flip-flopping at the slightest movement he made. He'd only just been switched from an IV to solid food—if you could call transparent broth and mushy rice _solid—_ this morning, and he'd hadn't exactly done a stellar job keeping it down. Hyperthermia was obnoxious like that. They'd been out of the desert for over a week now, and even here in Xing's borderlands it was the rainy season, and legitimately _cold_. But apparently his body never got the memo. Even though he wasn't as ill as he has been, he still had one hell of a stubborn fever and had been spending days lying flat on his back trying to stave off waves of dizziness and queasiness, especially whenever Winry tried to examine and tinker with his leg port.

Winry deserved a freaking _medal_ for her role in all of this, though, as far as Ed was concerned. And so did Jerso, for all that he could be a real smartass. The young woman who ran the clinic, Lien, was kind and generous, but not especially helpful owing to the fact that she was both hugely pregnant and had no assistants at the moment. Her husband ran the general store at the other side of the village, and her only assistant had left two weeks before to purchase supplies from the nearest larger town but could not return to the village because the rain had flooded out the roads.

The net result? The majority of Ed's caretaking was left to Winry, the only available person with any medical knowledge to speak of. Due to the village's close proximity to the desert, Lien certainly knew how to treat patients of hyperthermia and heat stroke—they called it _desert ague_ here— and had the necessary equipment on hand: the IV, the glucose drip, the fever pills, and a light, moveable basin for bathing. But at eight months pregnant, it wasn't like Lien could do much more than direct Winry and Jerso as they lifted Ed in and out of the cool baths, cleaned him up and changed the sheets when he gave into his nausea, and in essence monitor Ed 24/7 to ensure that he wouldn't take a turn for the worse. Which, apparently, could happen very quickly if they weren't careful, especially when the fever had overstayed its welcome.

Then of course, Lien knew nothing about automail. And that was exactly what had gotten them into this mess in the first place, hadn't it?

Well, that and the unpredictability of the damn desert.

Winry was certainly right about one thing in all this. Ed didn't _really_ have to make this trip. Of course he wanted to see Al again, and see how he'd gotten on with the chimera research, and it would've been a nice surprise for Ling if he'd shown up to the coronation. But as far as Amestrian-Xingese relations were concerned, there were dozens who'd have fit the bill just as well as he had.

But when the Colonel—well, now it was the _Brigadier General_ , wasn't it—had called him up in Risembool with the offer to fill the position of _diplomat_ and _honored guest,_ as a gesture of good faith in the coronation of the soon-to-be-emperor Ling Yao, Ed had known beyond a shadow of a doubt that he'd be going. His trip to Creta had turned out to be a complete failure. Over a year's worth of in-depth investigation of Cretan alchemy—as well as a return to Milos for the same purpose—had turned up a whole lot of _nothing._ In fact, he'd spent more time than anything doing virtually the same thing that he'd done in his days as a State Alchemist, sticking his nose in where it didn't belong, causing a whole lot of trouble, and managing to help (as well as piss off) a few people in the process. He'd gotten himself a reputation in Creta, but no valuable leads to speak of. And he'd had to return home empty-handed.

Of course, he'd been thrilled to see Winry, but he'd whiled away the two months after his return feeling aimless, useless, and, more than anything, _restless._ Winry herself had plenty to do—she'd learned all she could from Garfiel, and rather than try to immediately open up her own place, she decided she'd take time to save some money for a down-payment, as well as apply her talents where they'd be most sorely needed, and that was at home. There were plenty of brilliant automail engineers in Rush Valley, more than enough to fill the demand. But that wasn't so in the rural East, plenty of whose citizens still bore the scars of Ishval. And to put it bluntly, Granny wasn't getting any younger, either.

But Ed didn't know what to do with himself. Sure, he researched, when he _could,_ but he only had access to so many materials, and now that he wasn't technically _employed,_ it wasn't easy to muster the funds to travel to the major libraries in Amestris. So in the meantime, he worked odd jobs—herding and even shearing sheep for some of the neighbors, and minding the desk at Risembool's grocery store on the weekends. It was nice in a way, he supposed, especially when all it really took to melt away the day's tedium and frustrations was a smile from Winry.

But _damn_ it, he wasn't even twenty years old yet, and even though he may not be the Fullmetal Alchemist anymore, he sure as hell wasn't ready to _settle down_ anytime soon.

Just because he wasn't military anymore, though, didn't mean he hadn't kept in touch with his ex-commanding officer—more with scattered letters and telegrams than with actual visits to Central. Completely reconstructing the government of a nation from practically the bottom up while keeping the entire civilian population none the wiser was demanding nearly all of Mustang's attention. But in the midst of the process, an almost staggering number of military operatives and agents, as well as some deserters, who had been forcibly turned into chimeras under Bradley's command had come forward. Mustang had been keeping him posted on both the growing numbers as well as any information that said operatives were willing to give on the transmutation process. It was apparently traumatic enough, though, that even Jerso was pretty reluctant to talk about it—that made something Ed's gut twist hard when he thought of Nina.

Part of this exchange of information, however, had been the humiliating admission that after a year and some change in Creta, he had turned up nothing substantial. It was almost like filing all those empty reports every time he'd returned from yet another bogus lead on the Philosopher's Stone. Mustang had even sent back a snide reply in a telegram—

_Well—STOP—Doesn't this sound familiar—STOP—Old habits die hard don't they Elric—STOP…_

Bastard.

But Ed did know that Mustang tacitly understood Ed's frustration, and growing sense of restlessness.

Because as soon as an official envoy from Xing showed up—an envoy consisting of one lesser princes of Xing, one Li Feng, as well as an unnamed Amestrian who had been sent along as a companion—to cordially invite an honored guest of the Amestrian government's choosing to the coronation of His Excellency the Emperor Ling Yao, Ed had gotten a phone call.

Upon Mustang's recommendation, Ed made the trip to East City to meet up with this _unnamed Amestrian_ —Jerso, who had been selected due to the fact that being part-toad made the desert an easier trek for him than most, and also as a gesture to the Amestrian government to ensure that there would be no foul play on the journey back to Xing.

One conversation with Jerso over coffee later—while a rather sunburned Prince Li Feng had sat scowling and sipping tea in a corner— and Ed had made up his mind. According to Jerso, Al was faring better than he was in terms of chimera research, and along with Mei, himself, and Zampano had begun to develop a theory involving the utilization of alkahestry to distil human and animal souls into temporary physical vessels. Ed still knew nothing of alkahestry—he'd been hoping to leave that to Al while he investigated the forms of alchemy that the West had to offer, but he'd been disappointed to find upon closer that Cretan and even Milotian alchemy did not differ much from the alchemy he'd studied growing up, and that the chimera transmutation process was more or less the same as well. But if Al had made some sort of discovery? Well that made one of them. And even if he couldn't do alchemy himself anymore, he'd be damned if he wasn't there to help in some capacity.

That aside, he was the perfect candidate for the journey. As Mustang had explained it, this sort of thing was a delicate but routine maneuver of international diplomacy. In this case, each nation would provide one individual with some title or repute, and with a third party in place as an arbiter of sorts (and in this case, a guide who had made the trip before), the journey to Xing would be made; the coronation witnessed and friendship between the countries cemented. However, both candidates selected for the journey would ideally be what Mustang had called "empty medallions," or people who held showy or impressive-sounding titles, but titles that were in essence meaningless. In other words, those with no true value to either state. The trek across the desert was brutal and sometimes deadly, both countries knew, and if there were to be any casualties along the way, it would be best if the loss would not be a crippling blow to either government.

For Xing, a lesser prince qualified, particularly an embittered one who'd been vying for the throne, and who needed a sound reminding from His Excellency (and half-brother) that he'd better know his place now that he'd lost his chances at the throne for good.

And for Amestris…

Mustang had been right to call Ed up with the offer, because he really was a perfect candidate. With time, the Fullmetal Alchemist would fade from the minds and imaginations of the citizens of Amestris, but it hadn't quite happened yet. And those present hadn't forgotten his role in the Promised Day. However, he was a civilian, and frankly, he was of absolutely no worth to the government any longer. But thanks to Ling, the citizens of Xing would certainly know his name, and Amestris sparing one of their heroes to make the notorious desert journey all in the name of the country's friendship would look like a magnanimous gesture.

Telling Winry, though? That was the tough part of all of this. He'd been anticipating some sort of explosion from her, so he had waited to break it her until the next day after he'd returned from East City. Mustang had said to be prepared to have an answer within the week. Winry was no fool; she'd known something was up from the moment he'd gone to East City to visit some "old friends," but had said nothing and let him go. The atmosphere between them when he returned was friendly, but strained—they both knew she was waiting for him to spit out whatever it was he had to say. So the afternoon following his return, Ed had brought it up as casually as he possibly could while he was washing dishes, and Winry was drying.

And he should have known that just because Winry didn't have any wrenches on her person or within the immediate vicinity that he wouldn't get out of this unscathed. Because hardly three seconds after the words had left his mouth, the tip of a wet dish towel had snapped him, whip-like, full in the face. He dropped the stack of plates he'd been holding; they shattered at his feet as he grabbed at his stinging nose and cheeks with sud-covered hands and squeezed his eyes shut. "Gah— _ow_ —what the _hell,_ Winry?"

When he finally managed to open them again, she'd wheeled around to face him, fixing him with an utterly furious glare, one hand on her hip and the other still brandishing the dish-towel, menacingly. _Well,_ Ed thought, ruefully, eyes watering and still holding his nose, _let it never be said that pretty girls in aprons can't be intimidating as hell…_

"You're leaving again?" he'd expected her voice to be shrill, argumentative, but instead, it was quiet. Dangerous. Barely restrained.

"Winry…" he began, in some attempt to sound placating, or maybe just not to get himself whipped in the face again.

"You leave for a year," she continued, " _more_ than a year, barely bothering to contact me more than once every several _months_ and leaving me up nights worried _sick_ about you sometimes…" Anger was finally beginning to break through her voice, making it shake. Her fist clenched around the towel. Ed was tempted to back up a step. "And then you come home for two months," she added, voice rising, " _Two months,_ and now you're leaving _again_?" She gestured around her with both hands, the towel cracking menacingly in the air. "What is all this to you, anyway, Ed? Some kind of _pit stop_?" Ed could see angry tears forming in the corners of her eyes. Something in his chest clenched.

He took a step towards her now, put his hands over her shoulders. "Winry."

He half-expected her to pull away, but she didn't. Instead, she looked up at him, anger now replaced by a kind of tiredness. "Your nose is bleeding," she said, putting her hands over his and turning to pull him towards the kitchen table. "Come on."

Ten minutes later, with the very same dish towel wadded up under his still-throbbing nose, Ed had explained the situation in its entirety and was doing his utmost (and failing miserably) to warm Winry up to the idea of his departure. Her first objection, logistically, had to do with his automail.

"Desert sand is gonna be hell on your leg, Ed," she said, her back turned. She was putting on a pot of coffee, and Ed suspected that she was keeping herself occupied (and looking _away_ from him) so that she could keep her temper in check long enough to discuss this rationally. "And believe me, I'd know. Rush Valley's in the canyons, and you wouldn't believe the damage that sand can do, or the pain it'll cause if it embeds itself inside the nerve connectors. Not to mention the heat that a hunk of steel attached right near a major artery can generate…."

Ed waved a hand. "I made half the trip with twice the automail before, and I was fine. I had a horse to keep me up out of the sand, and guides who knew what they were doing, and I will this time, too."

Winry turned and set a coffee mug down on the table in front of him, a little too hard—some sloshed over the side and onto the worn tabletop. "You heard the stories when we were kids. We both did. People head into the desert and don't come back. It happens all the time. Even without automail."

He took a sip of the coffee. It tasted burnt. "Well Lan Fan made it with her arm, and Al made it too, didn't he?"

" _Only_ after waiting two damn years to make sure that he was strong enough to stand a chance," she snapped. "And believe me, I'm not thrilled that he ever went, either." Finished with her coffee and out of excuses not to face him anymore, Winry flung her apron across the back of her chair and sat down hard, clutching her mug and frowning.

Ed decided to switch tactics. "Look. I talked to Jerso, and he thinks that Al could really be onto something."

Winry took a gulp of her own coffee. "Well that's great. And when he's done all the research there is to do over there, he can get his ass back home and show it to you." She wasn't looking at him again.

And suddenly Ed was quite sure that this wasn't about the desert anymore. At least not per se. "Winry?" he said, after a moment.

"I thought the whole reason you went West and Al went East was because of the automail anyways," she said, softly. Her head was ducked slightly now, her bangs hung in her eyes.

"Well that was one of the reasons," he conceded. Now he wasn't looking at her either, but at the surface of the coffee—bubbly, muddy brown. Of course, he'd told Al that that was the main reason, at least out loud, but they both knew that Ed couldn't very well be trained in alkahestry.

But now that Al actually had a lead…

Maybe Ed could only sit and watch, but he'd give damn near anything to feel like he was doing _some_ sort of good, somewhere. He reached across the table, and set his hand, still a bit tacky with his own drying blood, over Winry's. "I'll be fine."

"I know you will." She looked up, abruptly, at his touch. There was a hard glint of challenge in her eye. "Because your mechanic will be going with you."

_To be continued…_


	2. Chapter 2

_The Desert Ague  
Chapter 2_

Ed had seen the desert before—hell, he'd traveled what amounted to its entire distance during the trip to Xerxes and back. But there was still something arresting, and distinctly unnerving, about seeing the gently-rolling landscape of Amestris drop off so abruptly into so much _nothing._ There was too much sky here, he decided—it left a person too open, too exposed. Home of his ancestors or no, he didn't care for it.

Not to mention, it was too damn _hot._

But not when they'd first stood right at the edge of it, watching it swallow up the land before their eyes, it wasn't. It was early March then, and in northeastern Amestris, it was still chilly.

When Winry, confused and shivering a bit, had mentioned as much to Jerso, Li Feng had rolled his eyes, and Jerso had chuckled. "That ain't gonna matter any by this afternoon, sweetheart, you'll see," he said, with a glance at the sky. He patted the flank of his horse—a massive, good-natured palomino, a draught breed that was probably the only sized breed in existence large enough to hold his weight. Must have been an exclusively Xingese breed, Ed thought, because he'd never seen horses that large in Amestris. "Well," Jerso said, after he'd swung himself into his saddle with a grunt, "mount up, everybody."

Li and Winry did so easily—Li looked to be a natural horseman, though the way he held himself on his own gray gelding, stiff and just-so in that damned expensive carved leather saddle, only further convinced Ed of what he already suspected. This guy was most likely going to be a broody, pretentious pain in their asses the entire way to Xing and then some. Unless he couldn't be bothered talk to them at all, which seemed to be the case so far, and that was fine by Ed. Winry was good with horses—some neighbors in Risembool owned a few, and she'd taken care of them on and off for years, as well as ridden them for fun every now and then, and she was decent on both counts. Her horse was a small mare with an oddly speckled brown and white coat that Jerso was calling an appaloosa, and it whickered softly when she swung herself into the saddle and patted its withers.

Ed and horses, however, did not get along so well.

"You just gonna stand there, Elric, or are ya comin' to Xing with us?" Jerso looked between Ed and his horse, an ill-tempered bay stallion, with which Ed was currently having a rather heated staring contest. Everything about this particular horse annoyed him, from the threatening way it swished its tail whenever he walked too close, to the awful smell that would hang around it whenever it munched on onion grass, to the way it seemed to _try_ its damndest to get extra spit and snot and horse-breath on his face and hands whenever he tried to put on the bit and bridle, while it'd drool and snort and chomp and shake its long head. Oh, and to cap it all off, its— _his –_ name was _Majesty_ , apparently, though the reason for _that_ was beyond him.

"Ed?" Jerso's voice was an amused rumble from atop his saddle. "We leavin' anytime soon?"

"Yeah, I'm coming, I'm coming," Ed muttered, and after a few tries, during which he could hear Winry biting down on a giggle or two, he finally managed to hoist himself unceremoniously into the saddle. That's another thing he hated about good ol' Majestyhere: by anyone's standards, Majesty was a _big_ horse. Not as big as Jerso's draught horse, but big nonetheless. And that was immensely irritating, because all the pride he'd felt once he'd finally reached a height at which nobody could really call him "short" anymore—he was of fairly middling height still, but at least he now had several inches on Winry, and he wasn't too far behind Al—was promptly deflated at the sight of this stupid horse's back so far up in the air. It took a few ridiculous contortions, and some hopping, for him to even get a foot in the damn stirrup.

Winry was openly laughing at him now. "You alright over there?"

"Shaddup," Ed muttered, getting a tight grip on the reigns while Majesty pawed and stamped at the ground, impatient. He heard what sounded like a quiet scoff coming from Li's direction, but he didn't look over.

Bastard.

As the morning went on, Ed quickly found out what Jerso had meant about the season not mattering out here. They rode across what at first looked like light-colored, hard-packed dirt and clay, the horses kicking up a fine dust all around them. It was a sort of worn-down path marked with huge, tumbled- granite boulders that doubled as mile markers, which Jerso explained was an old caravan trail that they could follow almost the entire way to Xerxes. Xerxes itself, of course, would mark their halfway point to Xing.

By the time they'd stopped for lunch, Ed was sweating, the skin around his port uncomfortably hot. His legs ached from sitting on that giant of a horse for the past several hours, and he kind of hobbled awkwardly over to the boulder marker they'd stopped by—half-sitting, half-falling onto his ass while Jerso and Li were tethering the horses, and leaning back.

And then Winry was standing over him, one hand on her hip, another holding one of the cloth bags that held their supplies. She dumped it in his lap. It was _heavy_. He grunted. "Lazy," she said, shaking her head. "You've been sitting all morning. You could help with lunch."

"What's there to help with?" he muttered, rubbing absently at his leg. "We pull stuff out of bags, and we eat it. It's too hot to build a fire or anything."

She let out a little huff of irritation, but didn't argue that point. She knelt in front of him and took the bag, though, and while she was rummaging through it, Ed could see that her cheeks and the tip of her nose and ears were already pink with sunburn. Like the rest of them, there was a thin coating of dust on her skin and in the folds of her light cotton shirt and pants where the horses had kicked it up. Ed now understood why Li had wrapped a wide scarf around his mouth and nose before they set out—he hoped his lunch didn't taste too much like the grit coating his teeth and tongue.

Before his fatigue combined with the soothing, rustling sounds of Winry's sifting through the bag could lull him into any kind of stupor, she was flinging neatly-wrapped parcels of flat bread and beef jerky hard at his chest.

"Lunch is served," she said with a smirk as Ed belatedly swatted the air in front of him and grumbled.

"You shouldn't be sitting right on the ground," she said, scooting herself back so that she was seated next to him, her own parcels in her lap. "There needs to at least be a layer of leather or plastic or something under you," she added, snagging a bit of his linen pant leg in two fingers. "To keep sand out of the port."

"What sand?" Ed asked, picking up a handful of the fine loose dust that surrounded them and letting it slide back through his fingers.

"Must you always argue with everything that comes out of my mouth?" she shot back. "You could at least get it up off the ground." And then, without warning, she was leaning over him and grabbing at his thigh with both hands, tugging upwards.

A hiss of pain escaped him before he could stop it, and he hoped she couldn't feel how hot the metal was through the fabric.

She let go, brow furrowing. "Ed?"

He propped his leg the rest of the way up, knee bent, trying not to make a face as he did so. "I'm good," he said, dismissively, grabbing for the parcel of beef jerky. "Just haven't ridden a horse in awhile, is all." That was actually the majority of the issue here, anyways. The damn horse was too big—it was like having a freaking mountain with a mind of its own between his legs— and his thigh muscles would be sore by now automail or no.

"Hm." She didn't sound convinced.

He tore off a chunk of the jerky with his teeth. "And I made it just fine to Xerxes and back, remember?" he said.

She rolled her eyes. "Don't talk with your mouth full." She paused. "And how exactly were you feeling once you _got_ to Xerxes?" she asked him, her eyes daring him to lie to her.

"Fine," he snapped, reaching for the bread.

She raised an eyebrow. "Fine?"

"Yeah," he said, though it must've lacked conviction, because she looked skeptical. That, and worried. He thought back, searched his memory to confirm the truth of it. What stood out most clearly of course, from that trip, had been the discovery that Lieutenant Ross was still alive, the run-in with the Ishvalans, and of course the discovery of the mural of the Philosopher's Stone among the ruins of the city. Sure, he'd been hot as hell on the way, complaining and cursing the fact that there hadn't been time for him to change out of his black clothing, and wondering whether or not it really _was_ possible for somebody's blood to boil... But all it had taken to rectify all that was a quick cannonball into the ancient city's well, and he'd been perfectly fine again.

Or so he'd thought. Because another memory was surfacing, hazy, and more in snatches than in one continuous sequence—a memory of camping beside the ruins that night, right before they'd headed back to Amestris. At first, the smell of the cooking fire and the excitement of the day had left Ed absolutely ravenous, but when somebody had pushed a supper bowl into his hands—a stew with vegetables and some rice from the East—his stomach turned, inexplicably, and he'd declined it. He remembered staring into the fire while everybody else ate, sipping from a canteen, feeling odd and hot and uncomfortable, and then practically falling into his sleeping bag after having excused himself early, wondering why his automail felt so heavy. He woke once, thirsty, and after stumbling to the well to drink too much water and then vomiting it all up into the sand, he went back to sleep, thoroughly miserable. But because he'd been alright, if a bit groggy, the next morning, he'd barely remembered that night at all until now.

He figured he didn't even need to bother to explain the specifics—she was wearing an _I-told-you-so_ expression, eyebrows disappearing beneath her bangs.

She reached over, set a hand on the side of his neck. Her lips were pursed.

"What are you doing?"

"Checking your temperature," she said, and softly tapped his thigh with the finger of her other hand. "Remember what I said about major arteries and automail?"

Now it was Ed who was rolling his eyes. "Winry, it's only been four hours. I'm fine."

She didn't take her hand away. There was an odd, faraway look in her eyes for a moment; her gaze went out over the rock-strewn horizon and she let out a shaky breath.

"Winry?"

Her hand slid up the back of his neck, fingers catching in his hair. She turned back to him, that odd expression replaced by a sparkle of mischief in blue eyes. "That's not all I was doing."

And then her lips were on his.

Ed made a noise of surprise—a bit of an _mmpf!—_ and then he caught on, gave into it, and kissed her back. She tasted good, like the aloe balm she'd bought at an outpost yesterday to keep her lips from cracking in the sun, and tea, and more than a hint of desert dust, too, but he couldn't bring himself to mind. Hell, he had to taste like beef jerky right now, but she obviously didn't care.

A loud snorting noise come off from somewhere to their left, and they both started, nearly bumping noses as they did so. Winry whipped her head around so fast that her ponytail smacked Ed in the face.

"I take it I'm interruptin' somethin'," Jerso drawled, arms crossed, eyes crinkled and lips pinched, looking as though he was finding it very hard to maintain any sort of composure.

"What do you need?" Winry said briskly. Ed was glad she was doing the talking here, because if it had been him, he'd either be yelling, or muttering something idiotic and unintelligible, or some combination of the both. All things considered, he was impressed that Winry wasn't doing the same.

"Was just gonna offer to fill the canteens," Jerso said, holding his hands up in a placating gesture, but now grinning broadly. "There's an old well that trade caravans use not too far from here, and I dunno if I wanna leave it to _His Excellency_ back there." He jerked a thumb back towards the makeshift camp where the horses were tethered, and swiped at his broad, sweaty face with a sleeve. "He can take care 'a the horses if he wants, and he ain't half bad, actually, but seein' as he hardly spoke a word to me for weeks the whole way here, I'm afraid he might try ta slip us all arsenic one 'a these days if I stick him on canteen duty." He shuddered. "Hate these political types."

Well, Ed thought, Jerso would know what he was talking about in that regard, having been a guest of the Xingese court for the past year. From what little Ed had been able to discern about it so far, it seemed that Xingese politics were a strict game of facades and decorum, which left plenty of room for backstabbing. It made him nervous for Al. About Li Feng himself, Ed could determine very little—around thirty, short-haired, clean-shaven, and with a very serious, austere demeanor, Li seemed everything that the Emperor-to-be was not. But that aside, he kept quiet and kept to himself, bringing up the rear during the ride and tending the horses in between. Ed sensed a cold resentment in him. He wasn't to be trusted, to say the least.

Winry had fetched the canteens from the packs and thrust them hastily into Jerso's hands. She was looking determinedly _away_ from him, from both of them, high spots of color on her cheeks that had nothing to do with the sun, lips fuller and redder than usual. " _Thank_ you, Jerso," she said, pointedly.

"Alright, alright, I can see when I'm not wanted," he said, shrugging huge shoulders and grinning again. He turned and waved. "Bye now."

Winry's shoulders slumped, and she sank back down beside Ed, head dropping down between her knees. Ed heard a little agitated growl from the back of her throat.

"Well…cat's outta the bag," he offered, lamely.

She sat back up, ramrod straight, and shot him an incredulous glare. "Honestly, Ed. We live together. There never _was_ a bag to begin with. What were they supposed to think?"

"That…you're my mechanic?"

She blinked. "You're an idiot."

He scowled. "Gee, thanks."

And then her hand was wrapped around his neck again, but her lips lighted on his forehead. "A complete idiot," she murmured against his brow, and kissed him.

_To be continued~_


End file.
